Renault Kiger 1.0 Turbo: Observations after a 20-minute test drive

The CVT is neatly tuned for the engine. I think it is too smooth for a Maruti Celerio AMT owner.

BHPian abhisheksircar recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I got to test the Renault Kiger 1.0 Turbo CVT RZX for a brief 20 mins drive on good, bad, narrow, broad roads. These are some quick observations.

Looks

The car is very smart looking with some key elements making it look very good – the sleek DRLs, Tri LED headlight arrangement, Split Spoiler, sloping roofline, muscular wheel arches, and well-designed alloys. The car that came for the test drive was red and it was bright and sporty. My wife is considering picking this up and she found the car quite intimidating due to its size and presence. For her, this is not a crossover but a proper SUV.

Drive

CVT. It’s beautifully mated to a sporty 1.0 Turbo engine. There is no manual shift option and hence you just see D on the console instead of the changing gears. You do not feel the shift AT ALL. Again, this is too smooth for a Celerio AMT owner. The problem is that it has too much power and she was doing high speeds in no time and she didn’t even realize it due to the stability of the drive. The 3 modes of Eco, Normal and Sport came to the rescue and she continued to drive on Eco to stay grounded. It cuts off the sudden surge. This is no gimmick and you can clearly feel the difference in different modes. The suspension setup is really good. She missed out on a speed breaker and went at quite a speed over it and the car was absolutely in control. I drove over bad roads and this one behaved quite well. She had one thing to conclude. It looks big but is very easy to drive.

Interior

You can easily see as soon as you step in that there have been corners cut to tailor it to a desirable price. Plastics are not something a lot of thought was put into. What makes up for it are the smart red stitches on the seats. It’s spacious on all sides, be it the rear seat, drive/passenger seat or even the boot. The 60:40 splits will be useful someday. There is loads of storage everywhere, including a cool glove box. The use of piano black looks nice but is a dust and fingerprint magnet. The instrument control looks like out of a video game. I did not spend much time understanding that.

Other bits

  • The ARKAMYS 8 speakers 3D surround system sounds really good.
  • Wireless Android Auto and wireless charging is a welcome edition. Seamless operation.
  • Cruise control works well.
  • The dead steering issue is not a deal-breaker. It’s definitely there but not an irritant.
  • Sounds inside the cabin are not completely damped but not a trouble at all.
  • I was expecting the horn to blow my ears off sitting inside after reading reviews but it was just about okay. Guess it was attended to.
  • The rear camera embedded in the logo is cool.
  • The top end has door handles in piano black, Turbo door badging, Red stitches on the seat cover, Red insets on the logo on the wheels.
  • PM2.5 level filter is going to be useful.
  • This does not have Hill Climb Assist but I tried on relatively steep inclines and had no issues. What I missed to check was the power in the reverse gear which supposedly is less.
  • 4 Airbags are good but ESP would have made it better.
  • The seat belt is indeed a little uneasy to put on.

Few pics

The two colors we are contemplating

Interior

Wireless Charging

Drive modes

AC with PM2.5 filter

Some highlights

Cost Cutting. Looks unfinished

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